A long time before we got civilized, the adobe jail stood on Fourflusher Hill.  It had four rooms:  three jail cells and the sheriff's office.  The adobe was painted brown, and the windowsills and the door were painted blue.  There were no bars on the windows because though it was easy to escape, why bother?  From the top of Fourflusher Hill a person could see fifty miles in any direction, and you would just be tired and sweaty when the posse ran you down. 

Besides.  The sheriff's wife Rosarita made very good tamales.  Why miss a meal just to be caught and have to wait for breakfast?  And if you ran away after dinner, why carry the weight of all those tamales as you tried to run.  After dinner is for digesting and thinking.  Why spoil that with a sweaty run?  And why miss the stars?  At night the stars would come out, and it was worth getting arrested to sit there outside your window and watch them.  So many, many of them!

Borracho Bob used to get himself arrested so he could eat the tamales.  He would go downtown and try to shoot out the street lights.  Both he and the sheriff would pretend that there were street lights to shoot out.

This is not to say that there weren't bad men.  You could see the smoke of burning, for instance, from Pancho Villa's raids fifty miles to the south.  But none of the bad men came here.  We had nothing to steal, and if you did steal something like a rake or a hoe, you would have to run fifty miles to find a place to sell it.  And they would see you from Fourflusher Hill.

Now things are different.  We have bad men and they make and sell drugs.  They live in a very nice jail it is hard to break out of, though sometimes they do.  And since everybody has cars, fifty miles is nothing for a getaway.
The sheriff and his men have cars, too, of course.  And radios.  And a helicopter.  And they are connected to the men of the Border Patrol, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the National Crime Information Center, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the New Mexico National Guard.

You can still see fifty miles from Fourflusher Hill, but now the adobe jail is a garden shed and the town has flowers planted there.  Kites and Frisbees sail from the hill.  Dogs bark.  People get married there.  On Saturday nights a bunch of Christians clean out one of the rooms and sing.

And there are still the stars.

something like a rake or a hoe, you would have to run fifty miles to find a place to sell it.  And they would see you from Fourflusher Hill.  [And you'd be watched from the hill] or [From Fourflusher Hill, you'd be seen.  And caught.]  [something in this phrasing above that seems redundant, though I like the repeat, thus my meddling with line.]

Enjoyed this, Rick. 

ld

Thanks Lynn.  I think you're right abt. they rhythm.  Needs tightening.

Rick